Apple Patents Earbuds With Fitness Sensors

If you look at all the far fetched rumors, going as far back as two years, most will predict that Apple is either launching a full fledged HDTV set or launching a smartwatch in the very near future. Both products haven’t materialized as yet, and aren’t expected to anytime soon. These days though it seems that Apple has its sights on the medical arena. The company is reportedly working on a device that could predict heart attacks, and it has also patented earbuds that have sensors in them for tracking vital fitness related data. This setup could work, given the fact that most people already have earbuds in place whenever they’re working out or on a run.

Stemming from a provisional patent application filed back in 2007, the “Sports monitoring system for headphones, earbuds and/or headsets,” gives us a glimpse of what Apple has been working on that’s completely different from any of its existing products. The earbuds, when in place, could measure a number of metrics such as temperature, heart rate, perspiration and more. They may also have an accelerometer for precise collection of movement data. The patent doesn’t offer many details about how the data will actually be harvested, so we’re in the dark on that at this point in time. Apple has a barrage of patents under its belt and that doesn’t mean all patented technologies see the light of day. This one is interesting because Apple appears to be quite focused on the medical arena, and perhaps it could tie-in well with its rumored fitness focused iWatch.